In an alternate universe, I am at the University of Southern California earning an MFA in Acting. Inthis universe, however, I am slowly coming to realize the lifelong importance of performance to my artistic practice. When I say lifelong, I mean from the age of about 9 onward, to the present. I used to act when I was a kid. When I was 15, some friends of mine and I wrote and produced aStar Wars-themed radio play, winning a contest and bringing geeky honor to our already geeky honors high school.

Black Took Collective is a group of Black post-theorists who perform and write in hybrid experimental forms, embracing radical poetics and cutting-edge critical theory about race, gender, and sexuality.

Last night I was very privileged to be able to participate in Miguel Gutierrez's performance/movement workshop, "Ineffable Intangible Sensational" atDefibrillator. It felt transformative in so many ways, and the psychic dust has yet to settle, so to speak. But one thing that I want to comment on immediately is an idea stemming from a conversation we had in a discussion period. I had asked Miguel if he saw teaching workshops as part of his own research process--and what I meant, basically, was whether that kind of teaching was important to his life as a maker of art.

Come up (or down, or over) to Rogers Park's own Mess Hall this Friday for the Between Reading!

The Between Reading presents texts based on the creative reading of and response to Nicholas Alexander Hayes's first novel Between. The source text examines perception and identity in a decaying American town. True to the shifting planes of perception in the book, writers and poets were invited to respond to the work through whatever modes they preferred. Their responses have been compiled in the Between Compendium.

As part of the Seventh Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival (click here for full programming info), I will be presenting a collaborative poetic performance entitled "Surrogates." I'll be offering poems written in collaboration with j/j hastain, inviting the audience to become involved as performers or prompters. Check the attached press release for more details--it should be a great evening of exciting improvisational and genre-blurring performance!

Lots to say today! My contrib copies of EmergencyINDEX have arrived. It is a very exciting volume. Anyone interested in performance (and the stretchiness of that term) will be fascinated by this wonderful annual. The 2011 edition is the first in the run, so be an early adopter and get yoursNOW!

Emergency INDEXis a great new annual focusing on documentation of performance. It's put out by the wonderful Ugly Duckling Presse, and I'm looking forward to its release. I can't make the release party at the Kitchen (as announced here). But those of you in the NYC area should try to make it. It looks great!

Oh yeah, I'm in thisINDEXtwice: as part of the Human Micropoem, and for the "Restrictive Andragogies and Ex-Citation" performance with Nicholas Alexander Hayes, in the Red Rover series.